Scum dev gained and lost weight to experiment for the game

Unlike lots of games out there, Scum really leans into getting the perfect feel of handling the health of the body, since it tracks your character's vitamins, calories, and digestion, even going as far as to show information about how many teeth the character has, which ultimately limits what it can and can't eat. This is pretty remarkable, however, the way the developers managed to do this - particularly by the efforts of Tomislav Pongrac - is even more so.

"The best way to try things, especially if you're working on a survival game, is to try to survive," said Pongrac in an interview with VG247. This unorthodox method was part of one of his many different tests on his own body for the game.

His first test involved limiting the calories he consumed per day by a total of 600 for three months. "I'd read that people during the second world war in a concentration camp were provided with 800-1200 calories per day which is way below your daily needs". This resulted in Pongrac losing all his muscle mass and fat his body had, up until a point where he was so weak, he couldn't open a jar of pickles.

A while later, he decided to go the other way and began consuming enough calories to fuel a bodybuilding regime. He would be eating around 8-10 meals per day, each around 300 calories, which developed his body to a point where he was around 10kg heavier than he ever was. "I got to the point where I couldn't put on my clothes, I either stop or change my whole wardrobe," he added.

"We made a game with characters that are completely unique," he continued. "They might look the same, but inside their metabolism is fully unique and will change with time. And that's the whole point of what I did".

How do you feel about this hands-on approach to game development?